Richard Houston worked as a carpenter for 20 years while taking college classes whenever he could. After earning a bachelor's degree in math he spent the next 25 years as a successful software engineer. Although he found success in those professions, he always dreamed of writing a novel. He honed that craft by taking every creative writing class he could. Somehow his poems and short stories usually had a dog as a major character.

Richard now lives and writes at his lake home in Missouri where he and his wife are raising their granddaughter, two dachshunds, and a rescue dog that is mostly Golden Retreiver.